By Ameet Sachdev | Trading volumes surged in May at CME Group, suggesting that futures
markets benefitted from the huge market gyrations last month.  The
average daily volume hit 16.8 million contracts a day, up 58 percent
from May 2009.

Interest rate contracts averaged 8.1 million contracts per day, an increase of 72 percent from the prior May, representing the highest year-over-year growth for the past several years, CME Group said.
 
Foreign exchange volume, which averaged 1.3 million contracts a day, saw the biggest increase, up 140 percent.
 
Stock-index futures were up 41 percent from a year ago, the first year-over-year growth since May 2009.
 
Most of the trading was on CME’s electronic platform, but open outcry volume grew 29 percent versus May 2009.
 
On the afternoon of May 6, stock and stock-index futures suddenly plunged by more than 5 percent in just five minutes. Almost as quickly as prices dropped, however, they rebounded. Market regulators have said they had not been able to pinpoint the cause of the sharp decline.